


Learning

by aishahiwatari



Series: Trektober 2019 [10]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, Getting Together, Love Notes, M/M, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 17:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishahiwatari/pseuds/aishahiwatari
Summary: There’s another note.Leonard sighs, wishes he could figure out who the heck’s managing to break into his locker at least once a week, always at different times of day, never leaving a trace beside a folded piece of paper.(for day 10 of Trektober 2019, prompt: Secret Crush)





	Learning

There’s another note.

Leonard sighs, wishes he could figure out who the heck’s managing to break into his locker at least once a week, always at different times of day, never leaving a trace beside a folded piece of paper. There’s not even a name on the outside, so they might not actually be for him.

In fact, he’s mostly convinced himself that they can’t possibly be. There’s nobody at this school interested in the lanky new kid, a nerd who’s already thinking about what med school he wants to go to. There’s certainly nobody wanting or even willing to go to the effort of leaving him notes like this.

_“I wish I knew what to say, but I freeze up every time I see you.”_

The handwriting’s not terrible, the paper the same kind that could have been stolen from any printer in the school building. It’s written in ballpoint pen, blue this time but it’s been black before. For somebody who professes not to be able to find words, they sure manage to write a lot of them.

Leonard glances over the older ones again, as though there might be any kind of clue to the sender’s identity that he might have missed on all previous occasions.

The first is ambiguous enough: _“I have a crush on you.”_ Like somebody confessing a sin, Leonard had thought at the time. Chances were that this person’s friends would disapprove of their pursuing him romantically, and they didn’t have anybody else to tell.

_“Seeing you always brightens my day,”_ is a little creepier, or more complimentary, maybe. Leonard can’t quite decide, day to day.

_“I could listen to you talk for hours.”_ Definitely creepy, but it's the only one that really makes Leonard think that these might be for him. Of all the things about him, his accent’s the one people comment on most. They moved here maybe a year ago when his mother couldn’t stand to be in their old house or their town or even the state anymore, and Leonard hadn’t felt too strongly about leaving Georgia at the time. He’s always found it difficult to make friends, but he’s even more of an outsider here.

_“You have the most beautiful eyes.”_ As far as Leonard can tell, it’s pretty damn impossible to have ugly eyes. His seem pretty unremarkable to him. They’re just hazel. Most of the time they look brown. What’s so damn exciting about that?

_“I love to see you smile. Wish I could be the one to make it happen.”_

“You and me, both,” Leonard mutter to himself, before he pulls himself together, stuffs the notes back in his locker and grabs his physics textbook. The last thing he needs is a reputation for being crazy enough to talk to himself. Not like school gives him much of a reason to smile, but he’s reasonable at physics. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

-

“Today, I’ll be assigning you partners for a presentation you’ll be making in front of the rest of the class!”

A few students hide grimaces and groans.

Leonard bites back an audible sigh.

The boy next to him doesn’t bother to hide his.

“Problem, Mister Kirk?”

Another deep sigh, a roll of eyes. Leonard doesn’t dare look to his left, for fear of making eye contact and being thought a conspirator alongside the walking disaster that is Jim Kirk.

He’s constantly late, often absent, wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle without a helmet, looks sulky at the barest suggestion of homework, even though he doesn’t even bother to do it. Sometimes he comes in with bruises on his face, scraped knuckles and a sullen glare for anybody who dares to glance at him more than once.

“Group projects are a waste of time. They’re only set so that struggling students can be paired up with motivated ones and have their grades dragged up without anybody having to make the effort to actually teach them anything.”

There’s a collective intake of breath. Leonard eyes the teacher warily, conscious that Jim has something of a point. Leonard always seems to be paired up with the least enthusiastic, most work-shy, least committed-

Ah, fuck.

-

“Your place, or mine?” he asks Jim, after class, some ingrained part of him attempting not to look too unenthusiastic about the prospect. He’s pretty sure he already knows what the answer will be, anyway.

“I- actually can’t do tonight.”

Leonard wants to believe he’s as apologetic as he seems, so he tries his best, too. “No problem. Tomorrow?”

“I have a thing. I, uhh- can do Wednesday.”

“It’s due Friday.”

“I know.” Jim’s a little defensive, then, but Leonard’s done enough group projects to know how this works, by now. He’ll end up doing everything whether his partner shows up or not.

“Look.” He pulls a scrap of paper out of his notebook, scrawls his address on it. “Come over, whenever,” he says, and hands it over.

And if Jim takes it with some surprise, and his hand’s a little damp when he clutches it like someone might snatch it from him at any moment, well, who knows what’s going on in that boy’s head.

-

Astoundingly, he does show up at Leonard’s place on Wednesday.

Also astoundingly, although for very different reasons, he does it at nine-thirty at night.

“Hey,” he says, avoiding eye contact, scuffing one booted foot on the step. “Nice house.”

“I’m surprised you can tell, with how damn dark it is.”

Jim gives him a rueful smirk that’s aggravatingly charming. He’s actually very good-looking, now that Leonard has a chance to do more than take a sideways glance.

Not that it matters. Obviously. Why would it?

“Leonard, who is that so- oh. Hello.” Leonard’s mother obviously chooses that particular moment to stumble across them, too, while Leonard’s both in the middle of a sexuality crisis and leaving a guest standing on the step.

And Jim, who Leonard has seen slope begrudgingly through every damn day of school with his shoulders hunched and head down, straightens, smiles and holds out a hand. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Leonard and I were supposed to work on a group project tonight but I got caught up at my part-time job. I thought I’d come by to see if he was free. Either way, I wanted to apologise.”

Leonard stares. His mother eyes Jim with interest for a moment, and then she ushers him inside. “You’re the Kirk boy, aren’t you?”

“Jim, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, now. You’re making me feel old, addressing me like that. Just Nora is fine.”

Leonard feels like he’s fallen into some sort of parallel universe. This is fucking bizarre. He trails awkwardly after the two of them as his mother leads Jim into the kitchen and begins fussing with sweet tea and sandwiches.

Guess they’re working on that group project tonight, then.

She does leave them sat at the kitchen island, after promising to call in on Jim’s mother at some point. Leonard had no idea they’d even met.

“Yeah, at one of those bereaved wives’ support groups,” Jim says, too casually for the magnitude of what he’s just revealed, around a mouthful of roast beef, reaching for a piece of paper and a coloured pen, although he just toys with it rather than writing anything. “You know what we’re supposed to be talking about, in this?”

He’s trying to change the subject, and Leonard lets him. “Uhh- yeah. Bernoulli’s equation.”

“I never understood that one. Pressure goes up as velocity goes down, or something? It makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Leonard informs him, in no uncertain terms, and if he sounds a little condescending, Jim just raises his brows, holds out the pen he’s been toying with. He’s gorgeous, and charming, and Leonard has no idea what they’re doing here, or what he could have been thinking before, before he’d realised Jim is at least partly the same kind of victim of high school social fuckery as he is.

“Alright, hot shot. Make it make sense,” Jim challenges, and Leonard sees no reason to back down.

He takes the pen, writing as he talks, Jim’s gaze flickering between his hands and his face. Being the subject of his focus is pleasantly intense and a little offputting, but by the end of his explanation, the page is covered in multicoloured markings and Jim’s eyes are bright with understanding.

“Oh, I see!”

“It’s counterintuitive, obviously. That’s why we need an equation. And, apparently, a presentation.”

“Well, I learned something.” Jim has a kind, genuine smile in the few moments before he remembers to suppress it, and Leonard feels the loss almost as keenly as he felt the thrill at having caused it.

“Thought group projects were a waste of time.”

“Well I can’t be right all the time.” Jim’s gaze meets his and holds. They’re closer than they were before, though, aren’t they? Is it just because they’re speaking lower, or is it why they are?

“Save some for the rest of us.”

Fuck, what are they doing? They barely know each other, but it’s been so easy, from the moment they were left alone, and Leonard’s caught up in that feeling of finding someone he could really grow to care about. Jim is a mystery, from his family to his part-time job to his patchy school attendance despite the fact he’s so much smarter than he seems, but Leonard wants to know all about him.

Jim’s phone rings before Leonard can fall too far into bright blue eyes, startling them both out of- whatever this is.

And Jim glances at the screen, and something flashes across his face before his expression shutters completely. “I gotta go.”

He has literally not even answered the phone, but he’s shrugging his jacket on and all but running from the house, leaving Leonard to take a few baffled steps after him.

Jim turns, and he says, “Thanks.” He looks briefly as though he hates himself for it, and then he’s gone.

Leonard has no idea what the fuck just happened.

His heart squeezes traitorously as he looks at that closed door.

He clears away the stuff in the kitchen and goes to bed, wishing he’d at least had the forethought to ask for Jim’s number himself. He could be texting him now, asking if he’s alright, continuing their intimate little conversation, imagining the sweet smile he’d earned just by being his own ridiculous self.

He clenches his fists in his hair and pulls, with a frustrated groan. At least he’ll see Jim at school tomorrow.

-

Jim is not at school the following day. Because nothing in Leonard’s life is ever easy.

-

He’s not there the day after, either. Leonard does his presentation alone. At least he gets a good grade.

-

A week later, he still hasn’t seen Jim. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried, but it’s not exactly his place to enquire and he doesn’t know who he’d ask if he did.

-

Two weeks later, he realises the notes have stopped and has to skip physics to have a minor breakdown in the bathroom.

He had told himself he’d let this go, that it was just a blip on his radar, that one shared moment did not constitute a friendship.

But Jim is a delinquent, a secret-keeper and a closet romantic and everything in Leonard is telling him not to let him go.

-

He writes a note. He tears it up. He writes another one that’s even worse, and he burns it.

He can’t believe he gave Jim such a hard time, even mentally, for the words he managed to commit to paper.

Leonard’s mother knows Jim’s address and doesn’t ask why he needs to know.

He knocks on the door to a slightly tired-looking house, hears a woman’s voice shouting for Jim.

And then, in worn sweatpants and a thin tee, Jim is there, staring at him in surprise and some alarm, casting a glance behind him before stepping out and closing the front door, as though to hide what’s inside.

Leonard hasn’t noticed a thing. He only has eyes for Jim. He’s missed him, doesn’t think he realised how much until this moment.

“How’d the presentation go?” he’s asked, with a much more fragile version of that rueful smirk he remembers, with sad eyes and a creased brow.

“I’m not here about the presentation.”

That brow creases further, then flattens around a startled expression as Leonard produces a sheet of paper he stole from one of the printers at school, that he's folded up, and hands it over.

Jim swallows audibly. He takes it with shaking hands, looking for all the world like he’s been caught at something terrible until he unfolds it and sees the single word written there. He lets out a strange little half-laugh, half-sob, scrubs at one watery eye with a hand and bites a trembling bottom lip, says, “Yeah?”

Leonard nods, and then he takes out a second note, and hands that over.

This one reads, _“I want to ask you out but I’m terrified you’ll say no.”_

“I didn’t bring a pen,” Jim says, with a twitch of his lips, softening at something he sees in Leonard’s face. He takes the first note Leonard gave him, turns it around and shows Leonard that single word.

_“Same.”_

Leonard’s third note has his phone number written on it.

Jim accepts it, and even if he struggles with his words, Leonard understands the short, sweet kiss brushed against the corner of his mouth just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m also on [Tumblr](https://aishahiwatari.tumblr.com/)


End file.
